Government policy

The government has published a progress report on its social mobility strategy (launched in April 2011). It highlights a doubling of free early education places for disadvantaged children aged 2, the ‘pupil premium’ to help support the most disadvantaged young people through school, and the ‘youth contract’ to help young people needing extra help to earn or learn.

The report also sets out plans to publish a series of ‘trackers’ to monitor annually the impact of policies to tackle social mobility. These indicators will include:

The watchdog for children’s rights in Wales has said it is unlikely child poverty will be eradicated in the country by the official 2020 target.

Keith Towler, the Children’s Commissioner for Wales, told a BBC television programme he welcomes the Welsh Government’s aspirations but he called for more honesty from politicians. He said: ‘I think that if they continue to say it – eradicating child poverty by 2020 – they will just cheese people off.’

Towler also questioned whether politicians really understand what people living in poverty are going through.

‘We heard from witnesses about the bleak picture for those on welfare and the scale of personal impact that is likely to follow the UK reforms. We have grave concerns for the future of Scotland’s most vulnerable people. This comes at a time when the Scottish welfare budget is being cut by £2.5 billion. Seeking to limit even some of the negative impacts of reforms is therefore no mean feat.’

The Secretary of State for Education has said he rejects the argument that pupil achievement is overwhelmingly dictated by socio-economic factors – or that schools are powerless to help children succeed if they were born into poverty, disability, or disadvantage.

Michael Gove, in a speech at a leading private school, began by saying he finds it ‘remarkable’ how many positions of wealth, influence, celebrity and power are held by people who were privately educated. He said:

Britain needs a ‘cultural change’ if it is going to cut spending on benefits, according to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. Simply ‘cheese slicing’ the budget will not be enough, and he accused previous governments of simply ‘patching up’ a fundamentally broken system.

Iain Duncan Smith made the comments in a speech to a right-wing think tank, Policy Exchange, in London. He said he wants to see ‘internal and external cultural change’ in the coming years, not just ‘political and technocratic’ welfare reform. He continued:

‘By this I mean cultural change both within society, and within government itself. We are faced with a fundamental challenge. Millions of people stuck on out of work benefits. Millions not saving nearly enough for their retirement. And government addicted to spending levels as a measurement of success, rather than life change as a measurement of success.’

The government’s anti-poverty ‘tsar’ has accused the Prime Minister of ignoring a study into how to break the cycle of deprivation. Frank Field MP told the Daily Mail that David Cameron has squandered two years by failing to implement any of his suggestions. He is quoted as saying:

‘I am puzzled as to why the Prime Minister would be so anxious for me to do all this work when he has yet to show that he has read it. This report was about giving the Prime Minister a flagship policy which would have taken politics into a new era. He needs to get on with it.’

In December 2010 a government-commissioned review of poverty and life chances (led by Frank Field) proposed the establishment of the ‘Foundation Years’ – a programme designed to improve the life chances of poor children by improving the quality of the early parenting that they received.

The government has published an annual progress report on implementation of the European Union’s strategy for inclusive economic growth – including the target of lifting at least 20 million people out of the risk of poverty and exclusion by 2020. The government says it ‘remains committed to eradicating child poverty, increasing social mobility and ensuring social justice’. It aims to do this by:

The Work and Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, has said that plans by his own government for an extra £10 billion of benefit cuts are ‘unacceptable’.

The cuts were originally identified as necessary in the Coalition government’s March Budget statement. Chancellor George Osborne said that an extra £10 billion cut by 2014 in ‘welfare spending’ (not defined further) would avoid extra cuts for other departments.

Duncan Smith said, in an interview with the Times newspaper, that welfare should not be ‘an easy target’ and the government had ‘a responsibility to support people in difficulty’.

Asked if he thought a further welfare cut of £10 billion was acceptable, Duncan Smith is reported as saying: ‘My view is it’s not.’

Researchers in Germany have concluded that governments are capable of reducing income inequality. They say that the evidence is stronger for the effects of social spending than for progressive taxation.

The research paper analyses the effect of redistributive policies on post-tax inequality in industrialised (OECD) countries over the period 1981–2005.

Child poverty in Northern Ireland could increase as a result of welfare reforms proposed by the UK Coalition government, warns Patricia Lewsley-Mooney, the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People. Lewlsey-Mooney said: ‘The inequalities already experienced by many children living in poverty could worsen considerably as a result of this welfare reform legislation, if action is not taken.’

The Commissioner challenged the idea that the Northern Ireland Executive had no choice but to adopt all the reforms, and called on it to see what scope there was to implement them in a way that protects children.

The Commissioner’s comments coincided with the publication of a detailed report examining the impact of the welfare reforms in Northern Ireland.

Pages

PSE:UK is a major collaboration between the University of Bristol, Heriot-Watt University, The Open University, Queen's University Belfast, University of Glasgow and the University of York working with the National Centre for Social Research and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency. ESRC Grant RES-060-25-0052.